Santas and elves rob Montreal grocery store to ‘give food to the needy’
Group called Robins des Ruelles later said in statement stunt was intended to highlight cost of living crisis
Leyland Cecco in Toronto
Fri 19 Dec 2025 12.06 EST
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Dressed in red suits and backed by masked elves, a group of Santas marched into a Montreal supermarket, loaded their bags with thousands of dollars worth of groceries and disappeared into the night.
The bandit Santas later released a statement saying the food would be distributed to the needy, and saying the Robin Hood-style stunt was intended to highlight the spiralling cost of living crisis that has pushed basic necessities increasingly out of reach for ordinary Canadians.
Roughly 40 members of a group called called Robins des Ruelles – Robins of the Alleys – participated in the robbery late on Monday.
The statement, released late on Thursday, and entitled “When hunger justifies the means”, said: “We are working more and more just to be able to buy food from supermarket chains that take advantage of inflation as a pretext to make record profits.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/19/montreal-grocery-store-santas-elves-robbery